Immunity
by cooper klebba
Summary: The strong survive, the weak perish. Orion was the strongest. Sequel to "the star of war"
1. the price of failure

_Love looks through a telescope; Envy through a_ _microscope-Josh Billings_

The strong survive, the weak perish.

This was the saying that I lived by since the day I was born. Literally. I was one of three siblings, the last to be birthed. When I saw my older brethren confused at the new world, I bit into their skulls for nourishment. My parents couldn't be happier.

My name is translated to Orion in more primitive tounges. My siblings were only my first kills. Even as a child my gladiatorial skills were unmatched. I killed ten gladiator champions in my first year in the fighting pits. Twenty more in my second, and fifty more in my third. My skills only sharpenedsharpened as the years went by. My people told me that i was a demigod, that the only one strong enough to kill me was myself, that I was the greatest warrior on our planet that has been named mars.

Not that mars was a good place to be treated like a king. It was a dried up dust ball compared to what it used to be. Eons ago our planet was a utopia, red jungles, blue oceans, and great city's. Our race was decided onto three classes. The higher matrtians were our leaders, blue skined and intelligence greater than any other. The middle martians were warriors, teachers, hunters, scholars, things that had importance. Lastly, the lower Marians, who were pale skined, had different body structure, and were the workers in the mines and factorys.

One day the lower martians, thinking with greed rather than logic, decided to rise up against the other classes to gain respect and power. The result was centurys of war and chaos. Now because of the lower martians, our planet is a wasteland. After they eventually lost the war, the council knew this could not happen again. So we, for lack of a better term, brainwashed their offspring to enjoy working, never stop smiling knowing that they were serving the greater classes, and literally work themselves to death.

We didn't know what to do about our now dead home world, until the answer came to us from the cosmos. An alien being known as a crystal gem said it wanted to protect us from forces beyond our capability. Then the thought of other worlds came to our minds. Planets that had rich soils and cool oceans. Worlds that we could take and colonize for a better future. Realizing that these crystal gems might become a threat to our newly drawn plan, we took the one on our wortld to the fighting pits, where I gave it a warriors end. We took its crystal and put it in storage, now building devices to observe planets close by.

Then we found the planet known as earth. Oh how beautiful this world was, so lush and exotic our envy for it grew year after year watching it. We knew this was the perfect planet to colonize. The higher martians began to design and make machines to defeat and inslave the local liforms. The council handpicked the best in our military, and chose me to lead the first wave.

The first days of our assault were the greatest days of my life. Killing and capturing countless the pathetic primates that lived on this world, defeating the crystal gems that gaurded it, and watching over the lower Martians build the new gem based machines to pave the way for the second wave. I was going to head towards the new base of operations to aid in the attack on this part of the planets capital. But then things started to go wrong. The prototype of the gem machine was destroyed, and some lower martians were killed, a construction machine was destroyed, and the gemstones were stolen. Luckly my species had what these humans would call telepathy, and told the other soldiers to attack the capital without me.

That's when I incountered the building with a strange communication device. The devise said that my men were outnumbered and outmatched, and that we would lose. Inraged by this insult to my comrades, I threw the device out the window. I knew someone in this building, so I made a plan to where the human would come to me, it worked perfectly. I walked towards the dark skined girl debating on how to make this trouble makers death as slow as possible. Then, before I could react, a boy ran up and stabbed me in my right eye. I tore the weapon out in pain. Then before I knew it, I was knocked out. I woke up later in a supply room. I banged on the door and demanded to be released. Then I tried to call one of my soldiers with my mind for a rescue.

That's when everything fell apart. In my mind I could hear both the lower martians and my soldiers scared for their lives. They weren't fighting against the humans, they were all dying of an unknown sickness. Thats when I realized how short sided this plan was. We were so invested in fighting machines we forgot to consider the danger of foreign bacteria.

As I pondered why I was immune to the bacteria, a sudden realization came over me. My people weren't the type of magicians that did the same trick twice. If something didn't work, we would scrap it and move on to something better. This mission, MY mission, was a failure. There would be no second wave and no rescue, because if the greatest of our kind couldn't colonize this planet, who could. And for the first time in my life, I felt ashamed, dishonored, and alone.

Now I am in a cage, paying the price of my failure in full. My right eye now grey with four small circle shaped scars where the small metal weapon struck. My body now covered with scars from the humans throwing rocks at me. I don't try to avoid them, this is what I deserve. I failed my planet, my comrades, and myself, and This eternity of hurtful words and red produse with rocks being thrown at me was my punishment.


	2. justice and vengeance

**Stevens POV**

Is it wrong to feel sorry for something when it gave you so many reasons not to.

Its been one month since the martians failed to conquer earth, and beach city was getting more tourists by the day. Did they want to see our museum with the special dormant gem tripods? Did they want to talk to me, Connie, Ronaldo, and the others about how we survived? Did they come to visit the restaurant I his in most of the invasion? No, they came to see the one living martian and throw rocks and insults at it.

I can understand locking it up for what it done, but this was just cruel. I tried to convince all my friends that what was happening to the martian was wrong, but that didn't go very well. the only person that agreed with me was Ronaldo, and that was only because he wanted to know more about the martian race. Eventually I tried to tell the gems about how horrible this was. "I thought the crystal gems were supposed to care and protect other species" I said. Then Garnet told me coldly "Some species don't deserve our helping hands".

I was told by my friends that this was justice for all the people that died. But I knew this wasn't justice. Justice would be locking this thing up in a dark inescapable cell, not give it a torture session with no end. This was hate filled vengeance, plain and simple.

The more times I went to acorn park, the worse I would feel. The martian had new scars every day from the rocks hitting its body. I could hear the rage in the air as I heard screams of hatred coming from the crowds. "Hey ugly, what happened to all that fire power you had". "You killed my friends you evil monster, do this world a favor and drop dead". "I hope you wrought in that cell, you deformed octopus". I might not be the smartest kid at times, but I knew what this poor martian was thinking, because it had the same thoughts as me about this situation.

The surviving martian didn't deserve to be punished like this.


	3. I am not weak

**Orions POV**

What was the worst part about being locked in a cage?

Its not the stones being thrown at me and the insults spewing from the mouths of these primates. No, the worst part was at night, because that's when that fat plant for brains teen who was named "Ronaldo" would come and ask questions that I couldn't answer. Not that I wanted to talk to him at all. He kept coming back hoping I would learn his language. If I wanted to speak in such a primitive tounge I would learn how to do it in a heart beat.

Tonight he had returned to ask more juvenile questions while my back was facing him.

"How did you manage to learn that Washington DC was Americas capital?".

I wasn't in charge of observing this world, I was in charge of getting my soldiers ready for combat.

"Why attack earth, you probably could've went to Venus or another close by planet?".

The council's most likely drawing the plans to go to this "Venus" as this human spoke.

"What do you know about the great diamond authority and their plan to hollow the earth?".

The great what know? Those devices he types into must be giving him brain damage.

"How's it feel being in a cage?" This question came from a new voice, so I turned around to see a young female standing close to my cage. After looking her over, I recognized her. She was the same dark-skinned girl from the building I was trapped in. Only now her face was one of anger instead of fear.

"Ronaldo, can I talk to this thing for a bit" she said. He simply nodded and let her speak.

"I came here at night so I could give you a piece of my mind personally. I don't care what Steven says, you deserve every single thing that's happened to you".

At least this child spoke the truth. I returned to facing my back against the front of the cell.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you! I don't care if you hear this every day you ugly brute!"

Ugly brute? I heard worse words from the other human children during the day.

"I just want you to know that I'm not afraid of you anymore, and do you want to know why?".

Because your safely outside my cage?

"It's because I know what you really are. You're weak".

What did that girl just say about me? I turned to face her, anger in my eyes. She then smiled, mostly enjoying the fact she got me mad.

"That's right, your weak. A pathetic, cowardly, weak being who couldn't win a hand to hand fight in its life"

Tell that to the thousands of warriors that fell by my spear.

"In fact, your whole entire species is weak. You guys build giant war machines just so you don't haft to get your tentacles dirty".

My blood was beginning to boil. Who was this child to call my people weak. She clearly didn't know about proper strategy and tactics. My duty was to clear out this section of the planet to prepare for the second wave. I moved towards the girl, looking at her with so much rage that it would make a grown man soil himself. This only entertained her more and made her confidence grow.

"And let me tell you something. Once our space travel is advance enough, were going to go over to mars and defeat your kind in ten minutes flat. And unlike you, we're gonna bring some hand sanitizer".

That sent me over the edge, and activated my most basic, primal, and vicious part of my gladiator instincts. I grabbed her by the arms and waist, pulled her up to the bars of my cage, and bit into her left shoulder. She started giving screams of pain, panic, and regret as she tried to break free from my grasp. My tight grip was broken when that Ronaldo boy punched my forehead and quickly pulling away the girl with all his might.

Now the girl was lying on the ground, crying and screaming with the shoulder wound now pouring out blood, soaking her blue dress. Ronaldo was panicky talking in a communication device about what just happened. All while I was screeching and flailing my tentacles as far as the cage would let me like an animal.

If theirs one thing that could enrage a champion of the gladiator pits, its being called weak.


	4. a helping hand slapped away

**Stevens POV**

If Connie wasn't dramatized before, she is now.

A week ago she was bitten by the martian, lucky Ronaldo was there to save her and call an ambulance. The bite didn't do any serious physical harm, but it did cause mental harm. When I visited her at the hospital, she was jittery and paranoid. The dark circles under her eyes probably meant she wasn't sleeping. The nurse told me she might need therapy, but should recover quickly.

After the news got around, people stopped hurting and yelling the martian. They were probably afraid of what the martian might do to them. Even Ronaldo, who was practically obsessed with finding out anything about the unknown, stopped visiting the caged martian. Which was good, seeing how what I'm about to do was something no one could keep secret, least of all Ronaldo.

It was night-time, and I walked over to the cage where the martian was held in. It had its eyes closed, but it didn't look like it was talking. It seemed like it was thinking. I decided to break the silence. "Hey, my names Steven" it opened its eyes and began to look at me. It then held one of its tentacles up to its right eye, the one I stabbed. I sighed. _everyone's gonna hate me for this. _I pulled out a special key that gems gave me incase someone bad locked me in a room.

"I came by to say that I'm really sorry about all this. I know I should be angry at you for what you did, but you don't deserve to be treated like garbage. Plus, I bet your friends on mars are worried sick about you. I know you miss your home, and I know you probably aren't that bad a guy, or girl. Look, this is a magic key that can open any lock in the world. I'm going to help you out, and let you go. You can probably find a flying machine at one of the museums in Delmarva. You can repair one and leave earth. So come on out, I promise this isn't a trick"

And With that I unlocked the door and opened it. It seemed surprised by this, then slowly moved towards the exit. Only a foot away from leaving the cage, the martian looked down at me. I smiled, and nodded to confirm that it could leave. Then its expression changed into anger, eyes now shooting daggers at me. I backed away slightly, worried about being attack like Connie. Then it grabbed the door, closed it, and returned to its earlier spot while still glaring at me.

Shocked was a gross understatement compared to what I was feeling. This thing wanted to live like an abused animal? Dumfounded, I left the park still confused about what just happened. I could return another night and try again. Mabye it just didn't feel like leaving yet.


	5. adapting

**Orions POV**

The way these humans go from hating something to fearing something is breath-taking.

After my little outburst the girl no one came to this place, and when they do come they rush past my cage averting their eyes. I haft to admit that it gave me a small sense of self-worth seeing them afraid of me once again.

Then the child called "Steven" appeared last night. He told me he was sorry for me and wanted me to go back home. He opened my cage with a "magic" key and told me to go. My anger and disgust to this was infinite. This was not an act of kindness, it was an act of pity. Pity was for the weak, and I will never be weak. So I closed my cage in refusal and watched him leave.

From the day after to the next night my mind was on what the girl and Steven said about me. These were the two views humanity had on my great race. They either think we are cowardly fools who rely on technology to get the job done, or poor injured creatures who needed all the help they could get.

Both accusations are wrong on countless levels. Our strength is not in our weapons and machines, its in our intelligence and or fearlessness in battle. Our kind never shows pity towards those less fortunate. The only thing you receive by showing pity towards an enemy in the pits is a knife in the back. I refuse to sit in this cage knowing my race will be mocked in such a way. I must show these pathetic beings what a martian can do with out a "tripod" and help from others.

So that night I escaped. It wasn't hard, all it took was some discarded trash near my cage and a good understanding of the lock mechanism. I later searched for anything I could use against this "beach city". I found a map of the city and found out where the source of information is, the "library". I took all the books I could find on human mechanics, robotics, insects, and anything else that was needed for the plan forming in my any human noticing me, I stole the books and left for where the citizens of beach city took its garbage. One mans trash is another mans army.

I would not rule over earth, not even close. But I would rule over beach city, and run it to the ground.


	6. iron insects invade

**Stevens POV**

Looks like I inspired the martian to leave.

When people found out that the martian escaped last week, everyone grew extremely paranoid. Security at the museum tripled to make sure it couldn't get to the machines. Apparently it also stole several books from the library as well. Most people speculated that it was learning about earths defenses and weaknesses. The gems were searching for the martian twenty-four seven, looking at every place the it might be.

I had a bad feeling the martian was planning something. It refused to come out when I tried to free it and then it decides to break out itself? Plus, the books it stole weren't all that helpful for conquering earth, they were More helpful for a science project. Mostly books about how robots and bugs work.

I decided to get my mind off of it by walking around the board walk. That's when I saw something weird near fish stew pizza. It looked like an old blender with four spider legs coming out of the bottom. It was moving around the outside of the pizza shop when it spotted me. It then came towards me at high-speed and jumped towards me. I dodged it in time before it landed on its side, now stuck like a turtle on its back. I noticed someone left a baseball bat on the wall next to. me. Panicking, I grabbed the bat and started to smash the strange robot. After a full minute of smashing it stopped moving.

_Did a blender just try to kill me?_ as I tried to figure out why this just happened I heard screaming from around the corner. I ran over to see what was happening. There I saw insect like robots destroying the town. Each robot looked like it was made out of trash. One looked like a Miskito that had a TV antenna that it used to stab people. One particularly large one looked like a praying mantis with pincers that were made of broken glass and rusty knives which it used to tear up everything in its path. The list of twisted looking robots went on.

Acting on my heroic instincts, I took the bat and started to beat the nearest robot I could. While finishing the robot off, I noticed something from the corner of my eye. I turned and saw the martian slowly killing someone with a spear made of a thin pipe and a large piece of red broken glass. Once it was done with murdering the poor man, it looked at me with the same look it had when I tried to help it escape. A look of pure rage.

_I really hope the gems are close by._


	7. warrior to the end

**Orions POV**

The day I led my metal comrades into battle will live in infamy.

I made sure my creations would deliver slow and painful deaths to the humans, not fast and painless ones that the fighting machines the council made. From the poisons in the stingers of the metallic wasps that stung the police to the slow burning acids of the Robotic termites that ate away at the cars, my hand-made army would show this planet what one martian can do with only a few books, some tools, and a lot of trash and scrap metal.

After killing another human with the spear I crafted for myself, I spotted a child all to familiar to me. Steven, the little worm that destroyed the gem-tripod prototype, took my right eye, and dared to show pity on me. If he didn't stab my eye, I would've avenged my soldiers deaths by destroying all humans in my path until they would be forced to bomb my fighting machine. I would've died with pride and honor knowing I fought to my last breath, and in turn unleash nuclear warfare on the earth if it wasn't for him. One thing is certain, his screams shall be heard throughout the cosmos.

I charged towards him, spear ready to end his life, when Three women landed in front of him in defensive stances. It didn't take long to figure out these were the crystal gems placed here to defend earth. One gem was purple skinned, silver-haired, and out of shape. Another was pale skinned and was rather thin. The last one was tall, had an hour-glass figure, and seemed to like the color red.

"Pearl, take care of the martian. Amethyst and I will stop the robot insects from spreading" said the red crystal gem calmly. After the gem gave the order, they all sprang into action. Pearl tried to slice and or span me with the her own spear she spawned from her gemstone. While she was more skilled than I had anticipated, I blocked and dodged her attacks with relative ease. I was able to knock her spear aside, but before I could take advantage, I felt something made of wood hit the back of my head. I fell to the ground and quickly looked up at my new attacker. It was Steven with a wooden weapon in his hands. He seemed angry, but had tears coming from his eyes. Before I could ponder why he was crying I felt someone grabbing me and throwing me to the nearest wall.

I heard a cracking noise when my head made contact. My skull was badly damaged. I slowly rose from the ground to see the crystal gems and Steven standing in front of me ready for anything. "Give up! You've lost!" Pearl said. I looked around, noticing all my creations had fallen. They weren't made for brutal combat, they were made for slaughtering a small city. So it was understandable why they fell at the hands of the gems. "Listen buddy, this is going to end in two ways. Either you die, here and now, or you go back to your cage and never try this again. Which one sounds more fun to you?" said Amethyst with a mocking tone.

I'm enraged by what these four were asking. These ignorant lifeforms wanted me to return to that cage. The place where not only me, but my entire kind would be mocked and ridiculed for MY failures. No, that would not happen, not to me, not to my people.

I will die today, but I will have the warriors death I deserved.


	8. a clear understanding

**Stevens POV**

The martian died three weeks ago.

Even after being whipped, punched, and having tentacles being cut off, it refused to stop fighting. And after one last blow by Garnet, it was dead. I had very mixed emotions about this. On one hand, I felt horrible about how it had to die. But on the other hand, it did get what it deserved for killing a total of sixty-four people with its robot bugs. We buried it where its cylinder shaped meteorite landed. _Kinda ironic that it ended up where it landed._

I think I got a clear understanding of what that martian was, what it always had been. A warrior. Someone who would survive through thick and thin until something stronger came along and took its place. Someone who refused to have any help knowing it would show weakness. Someone who would never back down from a fight for his or her beliefs, even if it meant death.

It was actually rather inspiring how it fought to the end, in a strange way. I always wanted to be someone like that. Mabye not as cold-hearted and ruthless though. I don't know how I should feel about the martian now. I just hope it got what it wanted, and is now living in a better place.


End file.
